In Search of Space was a series of talks and events exploring the ethos and legacy of the 60s counterculture, its various social and cultural experiments and their legacy. It was programmed to coincide with the exhibition ‘Taking Liberties’ by John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Andy Roberts, Stewart Home and George Robertson
This informative discussion covered the hidden past of LSD in Britain, the 1960s counter-culture of art, drugs and mysticism, the roots of the underground and the influence of the International Times in Scotland.
Street Level were pleased to welcome writer Andy Roberts, who gave an illustrated talk around his book 'Albion Dreaming: a popular history of LSD in Britain' and artist Stewart Home who commented on various London counter-cultural scenes involving his mother, the beatnik and model Julia Callan-Thompson. George Robertson shared his experiences of distributing the International Times from his base in Aberdeen and the recuperation of psychedelia.
The panelists - L - R : George Robertson, Stewart Home, Andy Roberts.
About The Panelists:
Andy Roberts is an author, journalist and researcher, whose books include 'The UFO's That Never Were (with Jenny Randles and Dr David Clarke) which explores society's fascination with UFO's, and 'Ghosts and Legends of Yorkshire' which deal with folklore. He writes for the Guradian, has a monthly column in Fortean Times, and has provided research for several TV and radio programmes dealing with UFO's and the supernatural, including being a consultant for 'Britain's X-Files', broadcast on BBC2.
Stewart Home was born in south London in 1962. When he was sixteen he held down a factory job for a few months, an experience that led him to vow he'd never work again. After dabbling in rock journalism and music, in the early eighties he switched his attention to the art world. Now Home writes novels as well as cultural commentary, and he continues to make films and exhibitions. He has written too many works of fiction to mention here, and some of his influential non-fiction includes 'The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War', and 'Cranked Up Really High', Home's reconstruction of punk rock in the light of Hegel.
George Robertson describes himself as a 'peripatetic intellectual'. In 1967 he was one of only 4 outlets in Scotland for IT. In Aberdeen, he was receiving underground missives from, among others, Project Sigma, King Mob, Gustav Metzger, John Latham, Ray Johnson. Later in 67 he moved to London to become one of the dancers in the psychedelic maelstrom. In the 80's, he wrote 'The Situationists and its Penetration into British Culture' and edited the 'Futures' series of books (Routledge).